The Red Eric, Robert Michael Ballantyne [free ebook novel txt] 📗

were forests of branching coral of varied hues; there were masses of fan-shaped sponges; there were groves of green and red sea-weeds; and beds of red, and white, and orange, and striped creatures that stuck to the rocks, besides little fish with bright coloured backs that played there as if they really enjoyed living always under water-- which is not easy for us, you know, to realise! And above all, the medium of water between Ailie and these things was so pure and pellucid when no breeze fanned the surface, that it was difficult to believe, unless you touched it, there was any water there at all.

While Ailie thus spent her time, or at least her leisure time, for she was by no means an idler in that busy little isle, the men were actively engaged each day in transporting provisions from the _Red Eric_ to the sandbank, and in making them as secure as circumstances would admit of. For this purpose a raft had been constructed, and several trips a day were made to and from the wreck, so that in the course of a few days a considerable stock of provisions was accumulated on the bank. This was covered with tarpaulin, and heavy casks of salt junk were placed on the corners and edges to keep it down.

"I'll tell ye wot it is, messmates," remarked Gurney, one day, as they sat down round their wood fire to dine in front of their tent, "we're purvisioned for six months at least, an' if the weather only keeps fine I've no objection to remain wotiver."

"Maybe," said Briant, "ye'll have to remain that time whether ye object or not."

"By no means, Paddy," retorted Gurney; "I could swum off to sea and be drownded if I liked."

"No ye couldn't, avic," said Briant.

"Why not?" demanded Gurney.

"'Cause ye haven't the pluck," replied Phil.

"I'll pluck the nose off yer face," said Gurney, in affected anger.

"No ye won't," cried Phil, "'cause av ye do I'll spile the soup by heavin' it all over ye."

"Oh!" exclaimed Gurney, with a look of horror, "listen to him, messmates, he calls it `_soup_'--the nasty kettle o' dirty water! Well, well, it's lucky we hain't got nothin' better to compare it with."

"But, I say, lads," interposed Jim Scroggles, seriously, "wot'll we do if it comes on to blow a gale and blows away all our purvisions?"

"Ay, boys," cried Dick Barnes, "that 'ere's the question, as Hamlet remarked to his grandfather's ghost; wot is to come on us supposin' it comes on to blow sich a snorin' gale as'll blow the whole sandbank away, carryin' us and our prog overboard along with it?"

"Wot's that there soup made of?" demanded Tim Rokens.

"Salt junk and peas," replied Nikel Sling.

"Ah! I thought there was somethin' else in it," said Tim, carelessly, "for it seems to perdooce oncommon bad jokes in them wot eats of it."

"Now, Tim, don't you go for to be sorcostic, but tell us a story."

"Me tell a story? No, no, lads; there's Glynn Proctor, he's the boy for you. Where is he?"

"He's aboard the wreck just now. The cap'n sent him for charts and quadrants, and suchlike cooriosities. Come, Gurney, tell you one if Tim won't. How wos it, now, that you so mistook yer trade as to come for to go to sea?"

"I can't very well tell ye," answered Gurney, who, having finished dinner, had lit his pipe, and was now extended at full length on the sand, leaning on one arm. "Ye see, lads, I've had more or less to do with the sea, I have, since ever I comed into this remarkable world--not that I ever, to my knowledge, knew one less coorous, for I never was up in the stars; no more, I s'pose, was ever any o' you. I was born at sea, d'ye see? I don't 'xactly know how I comed for to be born there, but I wos told that I wos, and if them as told me spoke truth, I s'pose I wos. I was washed overboard in gales three times before I comed for to know myself at all. When I first came alive, so to speak, to my own certain knowledge, I wos a-sitting on the top of a hen-coop aboard an East Indiaman, roarin' like a mad bull as had lost his senses; 'cause why? the hens wos puttin' their heads through the bars o' the coops, and pickin' at the calves o' my legs as fierce as if they'd suddenly turned cannibals, and rather liked it. From that time I began a life o' misery. My life before that had bin pretty much the same, it seems, but I didn't know it, so it didn't matter. D'ye know, lads, when ye don't know a thing it's all the same as if it didn't exist, an' so, in coorse, it don't matter."

"Oh!" exclaimed the first mate, who came up at the moment, "'ave hany o' you fellows got a note-book in which we may record that horacular and truly valuable hobserwation?"

No one happening to possess a note-book, Gurney was allowed to proceed with his account of himself.

"Ships has bin my houses all along up to this here date. I don't believe, lads as ever I wos above two months ashore at a time all the coorse of my life, an' mostly not as long as that. The smell o' tar and the taste o' salt water wos the fust things I iver comed across--'xcept the Line, I comed across that jist about the time I wos born, so I'm told--and the smell o' tar and taste o' salt water's wot I've bin used to most o' my life, and moreover, wot I likes best. One old gentleman as took a fancy to me w'en I wos a boy, said to me, one fine day, w'en I chanced to be ashore visitin' my mother--says he, `My boy, would ye like to go with me and live in the country, and be a gardner?' `Wot,' says I, `keep a garding, and plant taters, and hoe flowers an' cabidges?' `Yes,' says he, `at least, somethin' o' that sort.' `No, thankee,' says I; `I b'long to the sea, I do; I wouldn't leave that 'ere no more nor I would quit my first love if I had one. I'm a sailor, I am, out and out, through and through--true blue, and no mistake, an' no one need go for to try to cause me for to forsake my purfession, and live on shore like a turnip'--that's wot I says to that old gen'lemen. Yes, lads, I've roamed the wide ocean, as the song says, far an' near. I've bin tattooed by the New Zealanders, and I've danced with the Hottentots, and ate puppy dogs with the Chinese, and fished whales in the North Seas, and run among the ice near the South Pole, and fowt with pirates, and done service on boord of men-o'-war and merchantmen, and junks, and bumboats; but I never," concluded Gurney, looking round with a sigh, "I never came for to be located on a sandbank in the middle of the ocean."

"No more did any on us," added Rokens, "Moreover, if we're not picked up soon by a ship o' some sort, we're not likely to be located here long, for we can't live on salt junk for ever; we shall all die o' the scurvy."

There was just enough of possible and probable truth in the last remark to induce a feeling of sadness among the men for a few minutes, but this was quickly put to flight by the extraordinary movements of Phil Briant. That worthy had left the group round the fire, and had wandered out to the extreme end of the rocky point, where he sat down to indulge, possibly in sad, or mayhap hopeful reflections. He was observed to start suddenly up, and gaze into the sea eagerly for a few seconds; then he cut a caper, slapped his thigh, and ran hastily towards the tent.

"What now? where away, Phil?" cried one of the men.

Briant answered not, but speedily reappeared at the opening of the tent door with a fishing-line and hook. Hastening to the point of rock, he opened a small species of shell-fish that he found there, wherewith he baited his hook, and then cast it into the sea. In a few minutes he felt a twitch, which caused him to return a remarkably vigorous twitch, as it were in reply.

The fish and the sailor for some minutes acted somewhat the part of electricians in a telegraph office; when the fish twitched, Briant twitched; when the fish pulled and paused, Briant pulled and paused, and when the fish held on hard, Briant pulled hard, and finally pulled him ashore, and a very nice plump rock-codling he was. There were plenty of them, so in a short time there was no lack of fresh fish, and Rokens' fear that they would have to live on salt junk was not realised.

Fishing for rock-codlings now became one of the chief recreations of the men while not engaged in bringing various necessaries from the wreck. But for many days at first they found their hands fully occupied in making their new abode habitable, in enlarging and improving the tent, which soon by degrees came to merit the name of a hut, and in inventing various ingenious contrivances for the improvement of their condition. It was not until a couple of weeks had passed that time began to hang heavy on their hands and fishing became a general amusement.

They all fished, except Jacko. Even Ailie tried it once or twice, but she did not like it and soon gave it up. As for Jacko, he contented himself with fishing with his hands, in a sly way, among the provision casks, at which occupation he was quite an adept; and many a nice tit-bit did he fish up and secrete in his private apartment for future use. Like many a human thief, Jacko was at last compelled to leave the greater part of his ill-gotten and hoarded gains behind him.

One day Glynn and Ailie sat by the margin of a deep pool in Fairyland, gazing down into its clear depths. The sun's rays penetrated to the very bottom, revealing a thousand beauties in form and colour that called forth from Ailie the most extravagant expressions of admiration. She wound up one of those eloquent bursts by saying--

"Oh, Glynn, how very, _very_ much I do wish I could go down there and play with the dear, exquisite, darling little fishes!"

"You'd surprise them, I suspect," said Glynn. "It's rather too deep a pool to play in unless you were a mermaid."

"How deep is it, Glynn?"

"'Bout ten feet, I think."

"So much? It does not look like it. What a very pretty bit of coral I see over there, close to the white rock; do you see it? It is bright pink. Oh, I would like _so_ much to have it."

"Would you?" cried Glynn, jumping up and throwing off his jacket; "then here goes for it."

So saying he clasped his hands above his head, and bending forward, plunged into the pool and went straight at the piece of pink coral, head-foremost, like an arrow!

Glynn was lightly clad. His costume consisted